Choice Is At Hand

Sunrise Offers Record And Commitments

March 24, 1997|By STEVEN B. FEREN

On April 1, you as Bonaventure residents will vote to choose between joining with the city of Sunrise to create a new city or becoming the northeast corner of Weston. It's a decision with tremendous consequences for you and your future. It's about which city provides the right fit for your community.

Nothing (certainly not a name) will increase your property values, except a sizable investment in overdue improvements to Bonaventure. We will make a $1 million investment in landscaping improvements over two years. We will invest in repaving all streets, upgrading street lighting and beautifying community entrances.

These are not empty promises. As a demonstration of our commitment to you, we have signed binding contracts with the Irelands to purchase the Keep Bonaventure Beautiful Corp., the Racquet Club and three more acres of land. Total purchase price: $6.6 million.

The money is being deposited in escrow, pending the outcome of the election.

Emergency services are another area of critical concern. Sunrise has authorized four continuous police patrols in Bonaventure, compared to 1 1/2 deputies offered by Weston.

Sunrise's new Community Service and Public Safety Center (your future Town Hall), now under construction near Blatt Boulevard, will be staffed by our award-winning paramedics, placing nearly every Bonaventure resident within 1 1/2 miles of life-protecting emergency services. Weston has no paramedic unit that close and no plan to put one any closer.

The cost of providing services also varies significantly between the two cities.

Sunrise's purchase of KBB will mean your KBB assessments are abolished forever, a savings of $108 to $252 per year. You won't pay fire department assessments in Sunrise, an additional savings of more than $150 per year. As noted by the Florida Institute of Government report, most of you will save money if you join the new city, $175 to $350 a year.

Sunrise has delivered on its promises to you, to buy land for park and recreation use, to eliminate the KBB assessments and to provide you with guaranteed representation on the new city commission and local control of zoning decisions through an appointed Bonaventure Board of Trustees.

Add it up. Investigate what Sunrise and Weston have to offer and which city has backed up its commitments. Repeatedly, Weston officials have said they plan to do nothing.

Sunrise and Weston provide a clear choice of options to you. Sunrise has offered a comprehensive plan of services backed up by concrete commitments for the improvement of your community.

Sunrise's program has been the focus of the debate. It has been discussed, dissected and documented by the press, university experts and the community - and we welcome that public inspection. Weston, on the other hand, has not faced the same public scrutiny. That's because they have no plan to scrutinize.

You have a clear choice. Whom will you trust? The city that for 18 months has openly discussed its program for Bonaventure and backed up its initiatives by signing binding contracts, or the city that has waffled between "we won't do anything for Bonaventure" and "we will talk about your future after the referendum''?

On April 1, you have a choice between the known and the unknown, between commitment and evasion, between a proven track record of providing quality and a blank slate. Whatever you decide, we wish you the best.

--- The author is mayor of Sunrise. He wrote this column for the Sun-Sentinel.